everything bad is good for you, i would force people to watch the first five minutes of an episode of" dallas" from 19788 which was hottest show from reality tv. who shot j.r. show, listeners or viewers will remember. it is amazing. ever can catch it on tv fascinating to watch because it is so, the relationship between the producers and the writers and the audience is so condescending. there is this very palpable sense that the creators of the show just think that the audience can't possibly understand who these characters are and they spend two minutes kind of going, these two people are brothers. did everybody get that? whereas show today, not just that edited more quickly, that they're able to kind of go much faster and challenge the audience. look at a show like, "lost" which was insanely complicated. that show would have never gotten anywhere near national television in 1977 or '78. so there is tolerance for complexity and, and being challenged that the audience has now that we didn't have when i was growing up. >> host: steven johnson is our guest on "in depth". bill in oklahoma, you ar